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MIT Blackjack Team

During 1979 there was a course “How to gamble if you must” in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A group of students gathered to play poker, learn about different card counting methods and winning blackjack. Their leader was Bill Kaplan who taught the players to use card counting in order to win at blackjack. They took Edward Thorp’s book “Beat the dealer” as a basis of methods they used.

Later they decided to go to Atlantic City for putting into practice their knowledge about card counting.

First “Bank”

The investment was about $89,000 when the team doubled their original stake in August 1980. The profits consisted $162.50 per hour at the tables. All investments were made by both players and investors and after the winning they split the profits.

During many years the MIT Team blackjack players continued to play and win. In 1984 there were 35 players in the team. Since 1984 Kaplan couldn’t appear in any casino anymore because every time he showed his face there he was followed by the personnel of the casino.

How Did the Team Work?

Cheating casinos is not as easy as it may seem at first sight. Members of the MIT Team made fake identities for each player and used different roles on the casino floor. There were main players and those who act as support. They relied upon non-verbal cues and gave different signals and signs to each other which meant, for instance, that the deck is in the casino’s favor.

The Team gets busted

At the beginning the team played wonderful and the winning were incredible but later players’ wealth and success led them failure. The main thing they didn’t pay attention on is that different casinos’ securities are consulting together in order to prevent players who are suspected in card counting from playing at this or that casino. As a result, the players were banned from many casinos. Later they would try to back in the casinos with new identities; they put wing on and so on but all players would get caught very quickly. They said that nowadays some players still play in casinos all around the world single-handed.